5 ms·

Have you ever noticed that everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac, and everyone who drives slower than you is a moron? I think code abstraction fits a

Have you ever noticed that everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac, and everyone who drives slower than you is a moron? I think code abstraction fits a similar pattern.

corytheboyd 3y ago
Sortaaaa, it’s definitely harder to read existing code than it is to write new code, which is what you’re getting at. To bend your analogy a little further, we can all identify the person on the road who was clearly wrong, putting us all in danger. It’s the difference between someone slowing down traffic by camping in the fast late and someone else barreling down a residential street 50 mph over the limit. The former is annoying, the latter struck and killed someone. Not that code is this serious at all. Idk.
ismaelct 3y ago
I'm so going to steal this
- quesera 3y ago
  It's stolen from George Carlin. Attribution would be appropriate!
  - allknowingfrog 3y ago
    I rather doubt that George is concerned with attribution at this point, but I freely admit that I was probably misquoting somebody.
    - quesera 3y ago
      Attribution is not only for living people. You got the quote close enough for a plagiarism complaint. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ
whstl 3y ago
I wonder if I'm witnessing the birth of yet another Hacker News thought terminating cliche. There is a place and time for everything. You can drive as fast as you can in a Formula 1 race, but when you're around pedestrians you gotta slow down. Similarly, complex abstractions can often be fast to write but difficult to maintain. Similar to a lack of them. But sure, it all has a time and place. Except the attitude of dismissing or never discussing this topic. That's the only thing that is "wrong" here.
- allknowingfrog 3y ago
  I think we're saying the same thing. My intention was to point out the subjective nature of the original comment, not to kill the discussion.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  The previous comment seemed more "thought terminating" to me than the Carlin reference response to it.
  - whstl 3y ago
    Are we reading the same comment? The gist of it was: "This specific thing makes my job difficult, please be mindful of people like me" is just personal experience. The comment even contains the word "please" in it. And they even acknowledge that it solves other problems. But it's a bit shitty to dismiss someone's personal experience and plea by mocking with exaggerated quotes from a comedian, just because you happen to disagree with them.
    - lamontcg 3y ago
      > The senior engineer who introduced the thing like this inevitably leaves and nobody cares to learn some bespoke abstraction enough to keep using it. They seem to be saying that this inevitably happens and to never use the abstraction. They may have inserted a "please" in there to try to make it superficially appear softer, but they aren't actually being very nuanced at all.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
If they drive faster than me, then godspeed. Let them safely pass me and then swiftly disappear into the horizon, hopefully not before I manage to learn a couple badass driver tricks from them. If they drive slower then yeah they're morons and I need to pass them as soon as humanly possible. In both cases they become non-factors and I can drive in peace. The fast disappear into the horizon and the slow get left behind. This plays out until I am alone in the road and no longer need to consider the actions of other humans behind the wheel. That is when peace is achieved. Sadly it does not last long.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > hopefully not before I manage to learn a couple badass driver tricks from them. I mean they're probably tailgating and aggressively changing lanes and don't have any awareness of the dangers of differential velocity between lanes of traffic. I don't think you really need to learn those 'tricks'. You can still freely let them go and they can give any bored cops ahead of you something to do though.

Have you ever noticed that everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac, and everyone who drives slower than you is a moron? I think code abstraction fits a similar pattern.

corytheboyd 3y ago

Sortaaaa, it’s definitely harder to read existing code than it is to write new code, which is what you’re getting at. To bend your analogy a little further, we can all identify the person on the road who was clearly wrong, putting us all in danger. It’s the difference between someone slowing down traffic by camping in the fast late and someone else barreling down a residential street 50 mph over the limit. The former is annoying, the latter struck and killed someone. Not that code is this serious at all. Idk.

ismaelct 3y ago

I'm so going to steal this

quesera 3y ago
It's stolen from George Carlin. Attribution would be appropriate!
- allknowingfrog 3y ago
  I rather doubt that George is concerned with attribution at this point, but I freely admit that I was probably misquoting somebody.
  - quesera 3y ago
    Attribution is not only for living people. You got the quote close enough for a plagiarism complaint. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ

whstl 3y ago

I wonder if I'm witnessing the birth of yet another Hacker News thought terminating cliche. There is a place and time for everything. You can drive as fast as you can in a Formula 1 race, but when you're around pedestrians you gotta slow down. Similarly, complex abstractions can often be fast to write but difficult to maintain. Similar to a lack of them. But sure, it all has a time and place. Except the attitude of dismissing or never discussing this topic. That's the only thing that is "wrong" here.

allknowingfrog 3y ago
I think we're saying the same thing. My intention was to point out the subjective nature of the original comment, not to kill the discussion.
lamontcg 3y ago
The previous comment seemed more "thought terminating" to me than the Carlin reference response to it.
- whstl 3y ago
  Are we reading the same comment? The gist of it was: "This specific thing makes my job difficult, please be mindful of people like me" is just personal experience. The comment even contains the word "please" in it. And they even acknowledge that it solves other problems. But it's a bit shitty to dismiss someone's personal experience and plea by mocking with exaggerated quotes from a comedian, just because you happen to disagree with them.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    > The senior engineer who introduced the thing like this inevitably leaves and nobody cares to learn some bespoke abstraction enough to keep using it. They seem to be saying that this inevitably happens and to never use the abstraction. They may have inserted a "please" in there to try to make it superficially appear softer, but they aren't actually being very nuanced at all.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

If they drive faster than me, then godspeed. Let them safely pass me and then swiftly disappear into the horizon, hopefully not before I manage to learn a couple badass driver tricks from them. If they drive slower then yeah they're morons and I need to pass them as soon as humanly possible. In both cases they become non-factors and I can drive in peace. The fast disappear into the horizon and the slow get left behind. This plays out until I am alone in the road and no longer need to consider the actions of other humans behind the wheel. That is when peace is achieved. Sadly it does not last long.

lamontcg 3y ago
> hopefully not before I manage to learn a couple badass driver tricks from them. I mean they're probably tailgating and aggressively changing lanes and don't have any awareness of the dangers of differential velocity between lanes of traffic. I don't think you really need to learn those 'tricks'. You can still freely let them go and they can give any bored cops ahead of you something to do though.